Facebook Is Wrong. It’s ‘Chatheads,’ Not ‘Chat Heads’

Chatheads, not Chat Heads. Photo: Alex Washburn/Wired

I’m sorry, I don’t care what Zuck or Facebook says. Chatheads, the best aspect of Facebook Home, is one word. Just like “Facebook.” And all the other compound words that end with “head,” most of which are filthy and profane.

“They’re probably doing it because the most common compound words with ‘head’ in them are ‘dickhead,’ ‘shithead,’ and ‘meathead,’” says Wired’s copy chief, Jennifer Prior, who has spent more than a dozen years assessing the grammatical validity of made-up tech terms. There’s also pothead, cokehead, crackhead, and butthead. “They clearly don’t want Chathead to have a similarly pejorative connotation,” says Prior.

It makes sense: When you launch a new product, you don’t want it associated with dickheads and shitheads.

Too late. Zuck & Co. now have actual grammar to contend with. “When you break “Chathead” up into two words, ‘chat’ becomes an adjective modifying ‘head,’ which is meaningless,” says Prior. “‘Chat’ is not an adjective.”

The good news is that Facebook’s grammatical transgressions will not stand the ineluctable blitzkrieg of human behavior. “The internet likes compound nouns,” says Prior. “It likes the expediency of closing words up. You’re going to see this a lot as ‘Chathead,’ no matter how Facebook decided to style it.” Amen.